tidying

This week I have decided to Really Do A Tidy Up.  To go through the shelves in our den and dispose of bits of paper, old notebooks and some piles that presently camp out on the floor.

Of course, that means reading everything first.

I find a list of words and half sentences on pages from an old day-timer.

"incredible sweetness - fearless contender - rivers of my heart".  Why had I gathered these beautiful words together?

And, "the sadness of leaving behind- change"

The note,"walk with Ken", is from years ago, reminding me of a friend who moved away and with whom I've lost contact.

"Nov. Will's birthday 1984" reminds me of another young man who has slipped away from my knowing. 

And written in black ink is "shiva @ 5", yet I don't remember whose death was I honouring.

And, finally, the phone number of Victoria Pest Control Ltd., bringing back the sounds of the nocturnal scratchings within my bedroom walls!

But these scribblings were really only a cover for the most important papers I found.

These are two somewhat brittle and browned newspaper articles from The Globe and Mail, one from December 11, 1993 and the other from January 27, 1998.

I remember finding them perhaps 6 or 7 years ago, when, after reading, I carefully tucked them into a faded red file folder, which I returned to the cluttered shelves.

The earlier article is written by Roger Rosenblatt, of The New York Times Magazine, titled, "WHAT NEXT?" Its subtitle reads "After a lifetime of writing, research and meditating on biology, Lewis Thomas contemplates his own imminent death from cancer."

Reading it this morning, the question Rosenblatt hesitatingly asks catches my attention. "What does dying feel like?" 

"Weakness," he answers with a strain of bitterness.  "This weakness. I'm beginning to lose all respect for my body."

"Is there an art to dying?",  Rosenblatt continues.

"There's an art to living." Lewis brightens a bit. "One of the very important things that has to be learned around the time of dying becomes a real prospect is to recognize these occasions when we have been useful in the world. With the same sharp insight that we have for acknowledging our failures, we ought to recognize when we have been useful, and sometimes uniquely useful."

The second article, written by Alex Mogelon, is titled "Whose funeral is it, anyway?" In it, Lila tells her husband of 47 years, that she wants the poem "Do not stand by my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep" read at her funeral. 

She continues that she has made a list of her pallbearers, friends that she wants to carry her. When her husband sees that she has not included "George" in this list,  he worries about what this man will think. Her reply is that George can be on her husband's list, and says that she will be the last person to know what he thinks!

The most wonderful part of this article is when she wonders if her husband has thought about her obituary. She does not want the devoted wife loving mother kind of stuff.

When he asks what she wants to say, she recounts an amazing list of accomplishments. "That at 16 I was a radio operator intercepting Japanese sub signals off the coast of Vancouver Island...that I was a youth leader...a camp director..an artist...a magazine editor...a business executive...a video producer.  That my life meant something! That I didn't spend my years making chicken soup."

"And, one more thing. Tell the rabbi not to call me a woman of valour." 

"Lila, I can't tell him how to..." stammered her husband. 

"Yes you can. Whose funeral is it, anyway?"

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